Pleasant Valley Blues
by Rat-chan
Summary: Yes, folks, KKBB AU has arrived. Prison AU. Harry goes to prison and Perry is his new cellmate. Rated T for now, for language, but the rating will go up later. Eventual slash content.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: Property of others blah blah blah copyright blah blah. This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to actual persons living or dead are unintentional.  
**  
Overlong first chapter author's notes**: This is an AU story set in an actual California prison: Pleasant Valley State Prison. I will try to keep it as real as possible, but all my knowledge is on the wrong side (three immediate family members that work/have worked in Corrections, but thankfully no family members that have done time). Sadly, most of my interpretations of prison life will be based off "Prison Break," with snippets of stuff I actually know (like names of various state facilities, levels of security, a few administrative details, etc) thrown in. I may use actual events/inmates for inspiration, but all accounts will be fictional and timelines will be altered to suit my whims. This is AU - I can do that.  
As for the KKBB timeline and characters, I'll keep as true as possible to the original, but some things must be necessarily altered.

No real warnings for Chapter 1, but later chapters will decidedly have warnings.

And now, I'll get on with it!

* * *

Harry's eyes, despite his attempts not to be nervous, darted here and there almost frantically as he took his first step into Pleasant Valley (never had any place been less aptly named) State Prison. If he had been expecting great relief from the blistering heat outside, he was only moderately disappointed. If he had been expecting some reassurance that his life was not going to end in this hellhole...

Well, it was a good thing he was not that optimistic.

OK, so it wasn't Folsom or Corcoran. And he wasn't going to be in the maximum security ward. No rubbing elbows with Charlie Manson or Sirhan Sirhan…

But for someone whose fighting skills were unlikely even up to a women's facility, it was more than bad enough.

First off, there were the guards. The one who had been on the bus with the new inmates and who was now leading them inside was like a cross between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Lenny from "The Grapes of Wrath" (or was it "Of Mice and Men?" Harry never could keep his boring literary movies straight), except with less intelligence than either. The brain-dead mass had been obscenely fondling his nightstick since the bus had started rolling and his expression as he had eyed the prisoners had said clearly that he lived for punishment.

The guard that now received them seemed more intelligent at least, if not more compassionate. Farm boy Charles Barkley, Harry dubbed him. His cold eyes and stony demeanor promised swift and merciless response to any trouble.

Again Harry found his eyes wandering here and there around the room, looking for signs of his fellow inmates (other than the subdued and motion sick lot that had been on the bus with him). After two months at the Reception Center in Chino, they were his greatest anxiety. It had taken Harry most of his stay at that overcrowded facility to learn half the inmate politics. And now he had a whole new prison to learn. All new rules of who to avoid, who to play nice with, and whose ass to kiss and how to kiss it...

"Lockhart!" the deep voice of the Pleasant Valley guard called him forward. The underlying anger in that authoritative voice had Harry scrambling forward before he remembered he was supposed to avoid showing fear at all costs.

"Don't look scared, whatever you do, boy," an older inmate at Chino had told Harry when he had learned it was the younger man's first time doing _hard time_. "Guards, inmates. They all trip on the power play - it's the drug of choice inside."

Harry recovered himself enough to walk fully upright, but with eyes down as the old man had instructed. Still, when he met the eyes of farm boy Charles Barkley (_Jones_, the man's nametag proclaimed), Harry could see the hint of a smirk behind the man's otherwise grim expression.

"I'm Harry Lockhart, er, boss." He knew well enough by now what to call the guards, if not how to talk to them.

Jones' smirk became more obvious. "And I'm the head guard here, but you can call me 'boss' or 'the right hand of God.'" The man did not sound like he was joking. "Now, you follow the rules here and you'll make it through to your parole."

"Rules, boss?"

"Rule one, you follow the COs' orders and you follow them quick and without question."

"Yes, boss." So far he was managing the conversation alright.

"Rule two, you make trouble, you get trouble. Tenfold. Clear?"

"As crystal, boss."

Jones gave him a hard look at that, but apparently decided that Harry was not being a smart ass. "Now pick up your blues and get out of my sight."

"With pleasure, boss. Orange isn't my color." Beyond that, the orange uniform of Chino hurt Harry's eyes with its brightness.

"You getting smart with me, Lockhart?" All trace of amusement left the guard's face.

"Uh, no sir, I mean, boss. Smart's not a word that's ever been associated with me."

Harry swallowed and looked down as Jones continued to glower at him. "Rule three, just for you, Lockhart: keep your mouth shut except to say 'yes, boss' and I won't have to shut it for you. Got it?"

"Yes, boss."

"Now go." Harry scampered again to collect his prison blues and go to the other barred door to the room - the one that led deeper in. "Rogers!" Jones called to the guard waiting at that door. "Take Cottontail here to C Ward. He's Gay Perry's new cellie."

**Gay**_ Perry? Fucking Hell no!_

Harry's step slowed as his trepidation about his new home for the next five years overcame his eagerness to leave Jones' presence.

"Liven it up, Cottontail." Rogers apparently liked Harry's new nickname. And like the bus guard, he also seemed to like his nightstick an inordinate amount.

"Yes, boss," Harry replied in a subdued tone.

Rogers guided him down a hall to another door, which led back outside. They walked across heat-shimmering asphalt, razor wire topped chain link fences on either side, toward a building with a large C on it.

_Level III_... Harry's nervous eyes yet again flicked here and there in spite of all his efforts. His vision was good. He could make out the rifles the guards in the towers carried.

"Don't make me ask you again, Cottontail." Harry's step had faltered again.

"Yes, boss."

With a nudge of Rogers' nightstick against his back, they made their way into the large, imposing block of a building that was C Ward. The guard nodded to a fellow officer who, Harry noted with shock, actually gave _him_ a tiny, almost friendly nod of greeting as well.

A tiny glimmer of hope sparked within Harry, but it sputtered out as soon as the Latino guard opened the cell block door and the eyes of hundreds of inmates zeroed in on Harry with every variation between utter disinterest and predatory assessment.

_Back straight, eyes down_. He kept his eyes focused on the floor a few feet in front of him, at the moment grateful for Rogers' imposing frame (man looked like an oversized cross between Chuck Norris and Burt Reynolds, complete with porn-tache) beside him. The guard's presence did not stop the catcalls of the other prisoners, though.

"Hey Fish!" Harry was prepared for _this_ charming nickname at least. "You don't get along with Gay Perry, you give me a call."

"Must be a _dog_fish - look at those big puppy eyes. Hey Dogfish, I got a bone for you!"

"Whatcha in for, Fish? Snatch the wrong granny's purse?"

"Well, I think we've got a tropical fish here - look how red he's gone."

To Harry's increased horror, he felt his cheeks become hotter than the nearly stifling temperature could account for. Fortunately, his cell seemed to be on the lowest level and not too far from the door.

"Van Shrike!" Rogers called. "New cellmate for you."

A man both taller and broader than Harry, with bleached blond hair shifted himself off the top bunk of the cell's bed. _How does he maintain the color behind bars_, Harry wondered inconsequentially, thinking of all the work his kind-of girlfriend put into her hair.

"You show him around, teach him the ropes, Van Shrike. I'll be holding you equally accountable for any trouble he causes in his first week." Rogers somehow seemed like a playground bully in front of this Gay Perry Van Shrike (_linebacker Val Kilmer, more like it_!), his voice coming out in an overly gruff bark.

"Yes, _boss_." There was no obvious sarcasm in his voice, but somehow the honorific came across as anything but.

"_Free_ time inside until lunch, Lockhart," Rogers told Harry, nudging him into the cell with his nightstick. "Welcome to Pleasant Valley, Cottontail!" he added in a ringing voice before he left, snickering.

"What did you do?" Harry's new cellmate asked him as he looked Harry over with nearly complete disinterest.

"Um... Armed robbery," Harry replied, turning to face Gay Perry with a move akin to a great nervous twitch.

"I could not possibly care _less_ what you're in for, idiot. I'm asking what you did to piss off the guards already."

_Idiot_? Was that an improvement over Fish? "What do you mean? Was he angry?"

"He called you Cottontail for all the ward population to hear." Harry blinked at him. "_Hello_!" The larger man snapped his fingers at Harry. "It's a rabbit - a _prey_ species? A creature only found here in the jaws of feral cats or pancaked on the tires of the bus? So what did you do?"

"I, uh, guess I opened my mouth."

"You make a habit of that?" Harry nodded. "Well break it."

With that, Perry Van Shrike resumed his place on the top bunk and picked up the book he had been interrupted reading.

_A biography of Cagney? What kind of criminal is he?_

"So," Harry began hesitantly, at more than a bit of a loss, "You're G- er, Perry Van Shrike? I'm Harry Lockhart."

"Go ahead and call me Gay Perry."

"Uuhh... Why the nickname?"

"I've got a hot wife who screams down the entire cell block when she comes for conjugals. The guards and inmates are all afire with jealousy."

"Seriously?"

"No, shitwit. It's exactly what it sounds like."

"Uh..." Harry felt nervous sweat break out on his forehead.

"Relax, Chief. Even in prison, I've got standards."

"Um, I'll just call you Perry, if that's alright. Er, nice to meet you, Perry."

"Thrilled." Never had word and tone been so at odds.

"Sooo, what are you in for?"

"Rule one: we don't have that fucking conversation."

"Right... Gotcha... Um… Do the bulls treat us alright in here?"

"Rule two: no prison lingo in this cell."

Harry felt the nervous sweat return. _How am I going to live five years with this?_ Heat and anxiety were making him dizzy. He sat down on the lower bunk. "Is it always this hot in here?"

"Eight months out of the year. Be glad the guards can't handle the heat, or the thermostat wouldn't even be set as low as 80."

_Great_. "Well," Harry made a sickly attempt at laughter before continuing, "I'm sure the insulation is _asbestos_ they can get."

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

Harry heard Perry shifting overhead and looked up to meet a pair of very dangerous eyes. "Rules three through ten:_ shut up_."

Harry, feeling any remaining flush drain away from his face, silently nodded then lay down on his bunk. He heard a groan and muttering from above.

"_God_. Jones is punishing me for something!"


	2. Chapter 2

OK, quick word before chapter 2: I was complimented on the AU idea here, but I can't take credit. The idea is from a story prompt on the KKBB kinkmeme (which has plenty of non-kinky prompts). My idea for an AU was Wild West action and that's being written by another wonderful writer on Livejournal. Feel free to PM me for the link.

Oh, and for reference: Pleasant Valley State Prison (PVSP) is in Coalinga, CA, which is more famous as the home of Harris Ranch (cattle ranch with somewhat famous beef and a great restaurant... as well as the most unpleasant smell along I5).

* * *

Perry's eyes again went to his new cellmate, who sat across the none-too-clean table from him, shoveling his "food" as if it did not taste like something that had already been digested once. Harry's eyes, in turn, were focused on his plate. It was the most relaxed the smaller man had been since his unwelcome arrival in Perry's cell.

_Armed robbery_? That was apparently what this man was in for. _With what? A starter pistol?_ He just did not seem the type. Not that Perry particularly cared. He had meant what he said in his cell: he hated hearing 25 to life stories.

Figuring people out on his own terms was different, though. That was entertainment and mental stimulation - two things in short supply in prison - in one. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be much to this Harry Lockhart... except noise.

"Harry," Perry snapped. The other man, thus addressed, popped his head up and regarded Perry with wide eyes. _Cottontail, indeed_. The former detective swore he could see Harry's nose twitching minutely. "This is Pleasant Valley State Prison, not Harris Ranch."

Confusion temporarily replaced nervousness in Harry's eyes. "Eh?"

Such sparkling conversation was Perry had to look forward to for the indefinite future. "I'm trying to say that this isn't a cattle ranch. Kindly chew with your mouth closed."

"Sure thing, Mom. You want my elbows off the table, too?"

Perry blinked. _Wit?_ And was it spine or stupidity that made the man speak when he was clearly as intimidated by his cellmate as Perry had intended him to be? Not promising at all if Perry was expected to keep the fool out of trouble for a while.

"Just keep it quiet," was all he said, though he threw in a sharp glare for good measure.

Harry did not respond, lowering his gaze to his plate once more, though his appetite had apparently left him. After a moment of silence, however, followed by a nervous cough or two, he attempted to continue the conversation. "So, um, what is Harris Ranch?"

_Rules three through ten need some reinforcement_. He began to sharpen his gaze once more, but then Harry raised his brown eyes to meet Perry's and against his will Perry felt his expression marginally soften. _Is that hope?_ He was surprised he could still recognize the emotion. But there it was, shining out of Harry's eyes like the first early morning rays of the Southern California sun over the Hollywood Hills.

Shaking off his poetic fancy, Perry decided to answer. "Like I said: Harris Ranch is a cattle ranch. It's Coalinga's other claim to fame."

"Coalinga?"

"It's the hellhole town in which this pesthole stands, idiot." _This moron doesn't even know where he is? _Perry's odds on Harry's survival, which had started low, continued dropping.

"That's a lot of holes."

Perry blinked again. "Anyway, let's just say if you're grateful for anything here, it'll be for any day the wind doesn't blow from the north."

"Thanks for the heads up, but I'm from Indiana. Putting up with animals' shit is a cakewalk compared to people's."

"What's a Midwest farmboy doing in a California penitentiary?" The question was out of his mouth before he could get his barriers back in place. He had been momentarily disarmed by the genuine sparkle in Harry's eyes.

"Five to ten for armed robbery."

"_Rules_, Harry," Perry reminded him, trying to regain his footing in this conversation.

"Well _you_ asked."

"Yeah. We all do things we regret."

"Like landing ourselves in prison?"

"Sometimes it's something as insignificant as opening our mouths."

"Why do I get the feeling that has another meaning for you?"

_Well Christ on a fucking Ferris wheel, this monkey _can_ talk_. Banter was a pleasure Perry had not had in months. _My face feels odd_, he thought and he realized that his semi-permanent frown had slipped.

"Why did you do that?" Harry asked, his mouth matching Perry's in its downward curve.

"Do what?"

"Close off like that. I thought we were making friends."

"_Friends_?" Perry snorted dramatically. "This is prison, Lockhart, not grammar school. Look around. Do you see anyone bothering us in this particular corner of Hell?" Harry shook his head. "With good reason. You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar."

"I never really understood that saying, but I thought that was supposed to be a good thing?"

"Not in here, it isn't. Now clean up the table." It came out even more sharply than Perry had meant it to, his irritation with himself multiplying his frustration with his new burden. "Hop to, Cottontail. I'm expected to show you around until afternoon yard time."

Harry sullenly picked up their trays, took them to the window, and followed Perry through their ward. The eyes of many of their fellow inmates moved with Harry as they went, assessing his potential for threat, use, and abuse.

_Nonexistent, minimal, and staggering_. Perry was sure they were all coming to the same conclusions.

_Not my problem for long_, Perry thought, shrugging internally as he showed Harry the rec room. Then, they moved onto the phones and the library. Perry explained everything as concisely as possible and did not invite questions. Harry was, thankfully, mostly silent as he struggled to assimilate all the information. His eyes would dart here and there, trying to gauge everything and everyone about them - until he would meet the eyes of a guard. Then he would twitch and nod and quickly focus on his reluctant guide once more.

"Of course, this is all assuming you are, in fact, literate..." Perry finished his description of the library's lending system with this insulting suggestion.

"Of course I can read!" Harry's mouth kept moving for a moment after he finished his indignant reply, as if he wanted to add an insulting epithet, but did not quite dare just now.

"Pretending to read the interviews in Playboy hardly counts."

"I once read one book in a single day!"

"Wow, a whole book? Did it have nice little pictures?"

"No. Fuck off," Harry snapped at him. "The only fucking picture was on the cover."

"I wish I could." With an exasperated sigh, Perry led the way to various places Harry might go once he started any work (_He doesn't look good for much._), support groups (_Sadly, there isn't a group for the Terminally Stupid_.), or studies (_From the way he's looking right now, they might have to start from the elementary level_.). "Harry, stop that." The other man had been shuffling his feet and nearly pouting since that last dig.

"Stop what?"

"Looking so cute. It's not a good look in prison."

"_Cute_?" Harry's face scrunched up as if he had just tasted something foul and he took a step away.

_Fuck_, Perry had meant to say "childish." "Relax, Chief. I don't do cute. Or stupid." Harry's limbs relaxed, but his face did not. "Now let's keep moving. It's afternoon yard time."

"In this heat?"

There were so many sarcastic replies Perry could make to that, but he had had enough of idiotic responses for the afternoon. "Yeah. Now move."

Harry obediently tailed him through barred doors and to the exit to the yard. He stopped in the doorway and surveyed the lay of the land, as it were. Perry's gaze followed his. The asphalt of the basketball courts shimmered in the heat and all the grass was brown and trampled down. An easterly wind blew lightly across the yard, but it was hot and dry and smelled of heated earth. Every patch of shade was fully occupied and many prisoners moved about sluggishly in full sun. It was not an inviting sight.

"The hawks aren't circling, Cottontail, so hop on out," Perry commanded.

Harry faced him directly. "Are you going to be calling me that, too?" His tone was as childish as his body language had been earlier.

"Would you prefer I call you fuckhead or moron?"

"I might. Actually, I kind of liked 'shitwit.'"

"Whatever. Just get out there and leave me in peace for a while."

"What?"

"Go, vanish. Go 'make friends.'" With that, Perry strode away from him and toward a small table where an older inmate awaited him with a chess board. Perry half expected Harry to follow despite his orders, but something or someone had apparently caught his eye. With a shrug, Perry greeted his opponent and sat down to play.

He had not made his first move, when a commotion started behind him. He kept his eyes on the game, but his ears attuned to catch any orders the guards might make.

"Van Shrike," his opponent interrupted him, "I think you'd better do something...?" The older man's intonation rose at the end of his statement and he pointed a weathered finger toward the source of the ruckus.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Perry groaned. _Not here 24 hours_...

There was a circle of inmates thronged around a pair of combatants (though how well the word applied in such an uneven match was debatable). A tall dark-haired inmate was repeatedly kicking the prone form of another. _Of course, it would be Harry_.


	3. Chapter 3

"Yeah! Kick him again, Will!"

It was remarkable, really, how much the prison yard was like the schoolyard. Harry could almost imagine that he was back at Embry Unified High School and that it was Chad Thompson, the quarterback, beating on him with the rest of the football team egging him on. He half expected to hear Harmony, head cheerleader and girl of his dreams, calling out to Chad to stop being a dick.

"Shit! Not the face, Will!" A deep half jeering voice called out as one kick grazed his cheek, painfully splitting the skin open and almost ripping an ear. "Cottontail won't be so cute missing half a fucking ear!"

_So much for fantasies. _He shuddered at the reminder of a threat he had never faced in school. More than ever, he wished that he had learned how to fight. _Or, better yet, learn to keep your mouth shut, idiot! _While he had acquired the skill of keeping his head down most of the time (and of protecting his vital organs when that was not enough), he had never quite gotten the hang of the whole keeping quiet thing.

"Honestly, Harry,"Harmony had chided him once as she helped him wrap a sprained wrist. "Sometimes I think your mouth is completely disconnected from your brain."

_She might be right, _he thought as another bruising kick hit the arm that was protecting his gut. Prison was no place to be mouthing off – not when he had no friends to help him.

"Hey, Barker!" a more familiar voice called out, though it was still new enough to Harry that he needed a moment to recognize his cellmate. "I see you've graduated from thrashing stray dogs in the park to beating up the mentally handicapped. I suppose congratulations are in order."

"Fuck off, fairy! This is none of your business." Harry's assailant gave him one last kick before he turned to face Perry. Harry chanced a look up at the man (Barker, apparently). His demeanor had changed and once again Harry was reminded of high school and those times when his best friend Chook, who had been captain of the wrestling team, had stood up for him. The bullies had always taken that same nervously defensive stance, with frightened eyes in a belligerent face.

"The COs made it my business." Perry's tone fully communicated his disgust. "I'm this fuckhead's _Cliff's Notes_ to 'The Guide to Surviving Incarceration'. You know, 'Prison Life: For Dummies.'"

_Well _somebody_ skipped the chapter on not acting gay. _If Perry showed any more regal disdain (Harry had not understood what expression those words referred to until now), a scented hanky was going to magically appear under his nose.

"Yeah? Well this fish is a slow learner. You should thank me for giving him the crash course." Barker hawked exaggeratedly and spat on the dusty ground a couple inches from Harry's head. "Punk needs to learn not to stick his fucking, twitchy little nose in where it doesn't belong."

"I'll give him a refresher course later. In the meantime, I believe class is dismissed." The two men stared at each other for a long moment.

_What is this? Showdown at the Oh, Gay Corral? The Good, the Bad, and the Fabulous? _Well, the other inmate who was grabbing Barker's shoulder looked a bit like a flower power Clint Eastwood…

With a toss of his head to either side, cracking his neck, Barker said, "This little cunt ain't worth my time. Neither of them." He waved his hand at the boy who was still standing behind Harry, trying not to cower against the fence. Perry glanced at the youth, looking a bit confused, before looking down at Harry.

"Ten minutes – no _five_ minutes. You couldn't keep yourself out of trouble for that long?" His frown was terrifying, but he held out a hand to Harry and his eyes flicked over his cellmate's injuries as he helped him up.

"Hey, you can't really blame me for this!'

"You have 30 seconds to thrill me with your brilliant excuses."

"I didn't..." That was no good – he never _intended_ to get into trouble. It found him – no, it actively sought him out. Like the trouble that had landed him in prison.

"20."

"It wasn't…" OK, that was not going to work either. It _was_ his fault for opening his mouth, but…

"10 seconds left, genius."

"I had to do _something_. You should have heard the nasty shit they were saying to this kid here."

The "kid" thus indicated by Harry's words and a quick jerk of his head stiffened then. "I'm 23. I'm not a kid." His attempts to look tough were seriously undermined by his soft, effeminate features and tiny frame. "I can take care of myself a lot better than you could, Fish." His brown eyes glared at Harry, but he still had the aura of a stray cat backed into a corner.

"Fish? You were on the bus with me!" Harry remembered that face and its full mouth. _Cruel and unusual punishment to put a face like that in a prison like this._

"Well some of us were at Chino long enough to learn to mind our own fucking business." With that, the kid stalked away.

"Well at least he didn't call me Cottontail," Harry muttered as he brushed dust off his prison blues. When he finished, he looked back over at Perry, only to find the other man staring at him, an odd expression on his face.

"Harry, were you trying to _protect_ that kid? That's…" Perry shook his head, his apparently habitual frown returning. "That is the stupidest fucking thing I've seen here yet."

_I can't argue with that. _"Ow," he complained instead, as a shift in posture caused his new bruises to ache.

Perry sighed. "Come on, Chief. Let's get you to the infirmary."

"Won't that get me in trouble for fighting?"

"Oh, yeah. And the warden is going to call your mom in for a nice long chat."

"My mom died when I was a kid."

"Idiot! Did you notice any guards jumping in to save your ass? If there are no weapons and no signs of imminent death, the average CO chooses not to see anything." Perry grabbed his elbow and tugged him in the direction of the doors. "So move." The command was sharp and Harry found his feet moving before his brain had even decided to walk.

"Ow," he complained again as they walked past Rogers. Rather than sympathy, it earned him an irritated glance from his cellmate and a satisfied smirk from the guard. "Glad you liked the show, boss." _Shit! _He was supposed to be thinking before speaking.

"You volunteering for an encore, Lockhart?" Rogers' hand had already been on his nightstick, but his grip tightened on it as he gave Harry a hard look.

"Well, magic is really more my area of performance expertmph…" Harry was cut off – probably for the best – by Perry's hand over his mouth.

"You'll have to forgive Cottontail here, boss." Harry's eyes shifted to his cellmate in surprise. The man's tone was almost respectful. "I'm sure you noticed he has shit for brains and he just had that beaten out of him."

"I told you to keep him out of trouble, Van Shrike." The aggressive grip on the nightstick was loosened.

"I will, boss. _If I have to keep you on a fucking leash_," Perry added to Harry in a whisper.

"Move along," Rogers waved them away and they gratefully left him, and the blazing yard, behind for the relative cool of the ward.

Perry was silent as they made their way to the infirmary, though whether he was seething, thinking, or simply did not deign to speak to Harry, he was not sure. _I really don't get this guy… _He was like an indy film: all snarky dialogue, obscure references, and hard-to-follow editing.

Unfortunately, many of their fellow inmates that they passed on their way were far from silent. Harry was regaled with so many lewd comments and questions about the state of his "fluffy white tail" that after about the tenth one, they kind of all ran together and he was able to effectively block them out.

"Whoa there, Mama Bear." They were hailed by a completely different tone of voice and Harry looked up to see who had spoken. To his shock, it was the friendly guard from the ward entrance. "What happened to the cub?"

"Morales," Perry greeted the CO with a humorless smile. "The stupid thing picked a fight with a wild boar."

_Wait a damn minute! Is he making _conversation_? With a _guard_! _Harry was not sure which of them he should regard as if they had grown a second head.

"Well, go on in," this Morales urged them, pointing to the doors that apparently led to the infirmary, "but I doubt you'll get much help. Dexter's monopolizing the medical staff again with his spleen complaint."

"Spleen complaint?" Harry could not help but ask – he had never been exactly sure what the spleen did.

"Yeah. He suffers from a terrible excess of it." The guard chuckled slightly and Perry – Harry almost fell over at the sight of it – laughed with him, without the least mockery in his voice.

"Give my regards to Albert," Perry said as he opened the doors. The Morales nodded his assent. Dazedly, Harry followed his still smiling cellmate into the infirmary.

"Fight?" was all the doctor who received them asked. When Perry nodded, the other man jerked his head toward a side counter. "Alcohol and cotton swabs over there." And with that he left them.

_I'll never complain about New York doctors' bedside manners again._

"Sit," Perry commanded when they reached the counter and again Harry found himself unconsciously obeying. He watched from his perch on a stool as the blond man took out a swab and saturated its tip with rubbing alcohol. "Turn." Harry prepared himself for pain as Perry began to tend the cut on his cheek, but the other man was surprisingly gentle. The deft touch of the swab brought Harmony to his mind again. One of the last free moments he had spent with her, she had taken care of a cut on his finger caused by his careless wielding of the kitchen knife.

"You're hopeless, Harry," she had said, but her smile was so warm, and the kiss she had given him so sweet that Harry had thought "hopeless" was a fucking fantastic thing to be.

"So," Harry said abruptly, desperate to derail his current train of thoughts before it reached its misty eyed destination, "who's Albert?"

"He's a man," Perry replied shortly as he dampened the other end of the cotton swab.

"And here I thought you were sending your regards to a cow. Ow," Harry said yet again as Perry continued his ministrations more vigorously. "Fine then. How do you know porn star Benjamin Bratt back there?"

"Porn star Benjamin Bratt? Oh god, you mean Tony?" Perry burst out in a full-bellied laugh, drawing the attention of most of the infirmary's occupants. "Oh, that's _perfect_. I told him that mustache was an abomination, but he _insisted_ it made him look tough." He continued to chuckle for a moment then continued, "Morales is—"

"Oh, ouch," a slick voice interrupted them, much to Harry's disappointment. _He was fucking _finally_ talking to me like an adult! _"Have you already run afoul of Gay Perry's temper, Cottontail."

_Jesus fucking Christ. _There was another one. Still, Harry turned to greet the relatively friendly inmate with a flippant response.

And froze. _Holy shit. Harlan Dexter._

"Well, Dexter, my respect for you has just gone up," Perry said to the well-groomed older man who now stood in front of Harry, frankly appraising the dark-haired man while Harry could only stare back at him. He had only seen the man in photos and on TV. "You've somehow achieved the impossible and shut him up."

"A chatterbox then?" Dexter asked with an oily smile, his gaze never leaving Harry, who shifted uncomfortably on his stool and lowered his own gaze. The bastard was every bit as sleazy as Harmony had described him.

"With both feet in his mouth and his head up his ass!"

Dexter loosed a small, slimy chuckle. "Well, perhaps I'll get better acquainted with your _flexible_ cellmate when he's feeling better." With another laugh, he finally walked away.

"Well Harry, I guess you're honored. That was—"

"_Harlan Dexter_," Harry breathed, looking up again. Harmony's utter hatred of the man would not allow Harry to ever forget him.

"Yes. Wait! How in hell do you know who Dexter is? You don't even know what damned county we're in here."

"He's goddamned Harlan _fucking_ Dexter!"

"I know that, moron! In case it's escaped your notice, I'm asking how _you_ know!"

"He killed Jenna."

"He what?"

"That son of a bitch killed my girlfriend's sister!"


	4. Chapter 4

"That son of a bitch killed my girlfriend's sister!"

It took an unusually long time for the meaning of those words to penetrate Perry's brain. _Forrest Gump here has got himself a Jenny!_ Was his first inconsequential thought before full comprehension – and a sinking feeling – came to him.

"Hold up there, Chief." Perry held up a hand, still holding a cotton swab. "Dexter's in here for multiple counts of rape – not murder."

"Jenna may have been holding the gun," Harry replied, rage coiled around every word, "But that bastard as good as pulled the trigger." He was looking straight ahead, unfocused fire in his narrowed eyes, mouth set in an uncompromising line. It was the first time since his arrival that he looked like someone who could survive prison.

_But wait_. "Jenna…?" The name rang a bell… _Shit_. "Jenna Lane?" Harry nodded, glaring at the door through which Dexter had departed. "The one whose sister's testimony landed Dexter here rather than in the California Men's Colony?" There was another jerky nod. "And that sister is your girlfriend?"

"Yes… at least, I think so… at the moment." Harry finally turned away from the door, confusion replacing some of the anger on his face. He looked up at Perry then, forestalling the scathing comment the larger man had been about to make. "Small fucking world, isn't it?"

_Yes_, Perry though, unable to break away from the raw, compelling emotions whirl pooling in Harry's deep brown eyes. _A small fucking world held together by too many cruel ironies_.

"You and Dexter seemed pretty friendly…" Harry's gaze now held a hint of accusation.

"Yeah. He enjoys the cruel ironies." Perry's obscure response was met with a questioning frown, but he chose not to enlighten his companion. His past with Harlan Dexter was none of Harry's business. "Oh, sure," he said more firmly, "he's Uncle Walt on the surface. It's usually too late that people find out he's Eisner. With a bunch of heavies for Mousketeers."

"I thought he was more of a beach blanket Katzenberg." Harry looked up at him now with a hint of a twinkle in his eyes and a humorous twist to his mouth. Perry found himself momentarily gaping, mouth open to laugh, but sound caught in his throat.

_This_, he realized. This was how the man was supposed to look. "Tha—that's not even close, goofball." _Goofball_? Perry winced inwardly as Harry raised an eyebrow. _Even he knows that was weak_. "Too blond and sleazy to be Katzenberg."

"How long have you been in here? Have you seen Katzenberg lately?"

"Some people have better things to do with their time than watching all the DVD extras for chidlren's movies."

"Well what did you do that was so damned important?"

"I was a-" _Damn_! How did the little moron do it? Perry's defenses were the walls of Troy – only he was not stupid enough to take in a fuck-off huge wooden horse. _I guess a wooden ass is another matter_… "I was a private investigator." _Screw it. _Perhaps answering a question or two, especially ones that made Perry sound more impressive, would shut Harry up for a while. Especially if his silent, wide-eyed response to that was anything to go by.

_Wrong_.

"A P.I.? You mean, like Jonny Gossamer?" Harry leaned forward on his stool, only to wince as the move no doubt caused his bruised ribs to shift.

"Jonny Gossamer? Please. Now, lift up your shirt." Harry looked at him suspiciously, lower lip between his teeth. "Fuckhead, I am not going to rape you in the infirmary. I just want to check your ribs." With a wide shrug, which caused another wince of pain, and a careless wave of the hand, the other man complied. "Anyway, Gossamer is for children."

"I read it in junior high," Harry said defensively as Perry began checking his ribcage. "I was never sure how he figured everything out. It was all so unconnected at first. He'd have these two cases that you thought were completely different and then it would turn out that they weren't. And-"

"Harry!" It took Perry a moment to remember to shut his cellmate up. _I would never have supposed he would be so toned under his prison blues_… No. He pushed on a bruise harder than was necessary, earning another wince… and probably a dirty look as well. "I'm sure the _Hardy Boys_ stump you every time, genius. Come on! Even the guy who wrote Jonny Gossamer said he was a joke."

"Shut up. He was just a writer – what did he know?"

"More than you. But then again, so does the average fifth grader." Perry ignored the indignant sound his "patient" made at that. "Phillip Marlowe: _that's_ a detective."

"Was he the one Cagney played?"

"It was Bogart, idiot." The happy thought of Bogey was enough to keep Perry from tearing into Harry too much over the mistake. "Humphrey Bogart…" His voice dropped to a near whisper and his eyes drifted from his cellmate's bruised torso to stare, unfocused, at the counter behind him.

"Right…" Perry looked back at Harry to see the man lowering his shirt, an odd look – as if he had just tasted something sour – on his face. "Um… so… women want him, men want to be him, and _you_ want both… kind of thing?"

"Something like that…" _He's taking my sexuality in stride… relatively_. It was certainly not the kind of reaction Perry expected – or was used to on the inside. "Anyway, before you led us 100 miles away from the point of the conversation, I was going to tell you to keep your mouth shut."

"You mean the first ten times you said it didn't count?"

"I meant about your 'maybe girlfriend.'"

"Did you really just speak 'in quotes?'" Harry mimicked Perry's gesture, his moves exaggerated.

"Shut up," Perry responded, lowering the other man's hands and wondering if those two words were rapidly losing their meaning. "I'm trying to warn you here: don't let Dexter know you have any connection to Harmony Faith Lane. He'll use it against both of you."

"OK." Harry's voice and expression were serious again. "Thank you," he added with a small tilt of his head.

"You—you're…" _Fuck. Get it together Van Shrike_! "Your shit, unfortunately, lands in my front yard. I'd prefer to keep it clean. Now," he added, rising from his seat in front of Harry, "let's get out of here." Perry hated the smell of hospitals, doctor's offices and the like. It had too many unpleasant associations.

"Lockhart! Van Shrike!" A voice called, thankfully interrupting them. They both looked over to see Morales standing there with a doctor and an injured con standing behind him. The Latino was posed aggressively, but Perry could see the smile hovering around the edges of his tough guard face. "Time to get your asses out of here and back to your cell."

"Yes, boss," they replied in unison before following Morales out the infirmary doors.

"Y'all come back now, ya hear?" The guard said cheerfully in a terribly facsimile of a Southern accent once they were out of the room – and earshot.

"Are you asking us to injure ourselves!" Harry turned back and blurted out. Then, he covered his mouth with both his hands, looking fearful.

"No, of course not," Morales answered amiably. "Come back with anything. A hang nail even. Those doctors need _something_ to do besides sit on their thumbs for State money."

Perry chuckled at that. "Furlough days again?"

The guard uttered a string of curses in Spanish before answering. "We're stretched thin, getting almost no time for breaks – and God am I glad I quit smoking! – because we have to take so many fucking days off, while they sit there in their little white room, sipping Maxwell House and chatting away like a pair of beauty school dropouts."

"What does that mean?" Harry asked looking between the two of them, utterly bemused.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Perry replied brusquely, making a shooing gesture with his hand. "Now move on. I'll be with you in a moment to make sure you haven't tripped over your own feet."

"Hey!"

"Go." Perry watched him move away, then turned back to Morales, who was smiling at him. "What?"

"Oh, nothing. Just nice to see you getting along so well with your new cellie."

"First, cut the prison lingo – you know I hate it. Second, did you drive past a burning pot farm on your way to work today?"

"Oh, but you two looked so cozy back there in the infirmary." The smile was a full blown smirk now.

"Cozy!" Perry took a deep breath to prepare for a stream of invective, but then paused, lines from Shakespeare running through his head. Protesting would only make it worse. "Well, he said you looked like 'porn star Benjamin Bratt,' so I decided he couldn't be a total loss." It was Perry's turn to smirk as Morales raised a hand to his mustache, face shifting into a mock-wounded frown. It did not last long, though, as Perry remembered the rest of their conversation. "Seriously though, Tony." He dropped his voice down, leaning closer to his one time friend. "Keep an eye out."

"On him or for him?"

"Just – pay attention." The unease he had felt since Harry had first uttered Harlan Dexter's name had never really left him.

"It's sweet to see you so concerned about your new friend. My brother will be so pleased you found somebody at last!" Morales' words were light, but there was a wrinkle between his brows.

"Oh please!" Perry said, shaking his head both to reject the guard's ridiculous statement and to snap himself out of… whatever it was that had come over him today. "I'm a P.I., not a federal marshal." He turned then, starting to walk away.

"What the hell does that mean?" Morales asked, confused.

"It means I don't do the Witless Protection Program!" With that, Perry lifted his chin and strode briskly after his cellmate.


End file.
